Laura Dekker - reluctant to reach land after 47 days peacefully at sea .

It's our promise always to bring you the news as you'd like to have it – relevant to the you as a cruising sailor, in the level of detail that you would like and from the perspective you would like.

This week, as ever, there's plenty of it. Two adventure sailing expeditions worth mentioning: First there's the arrival of 16-year-old Laura Dekker in to Durban after a 47-day journey across the Indian Ocean. What a cool sailor she is...the only thing that seems to ruffle her is having to give up life on the ocean to approach land and cope with too much attention – shades of Bernard Moitessier. He was so reluctant to become the first winner of a round-world yacht race that he just kept on sailing instead and finished his life in Tahiti.

The other amazing adventure, begun in 2002, not only encompasses Seven Oceans but also Seven Peaks. It is by the six members of Swiss Family Schwörer, four of whom were, wait for it, born during the voyage!

Bernard Moitessier - so reluctant for fame that he sailed away to the South Pacific .. .

Both of these expeditions are being carried out by very able seafarers, but, blame the GPS and all the other gizmos that are meant to make sailing easier if you like, but there are far too many sailors with insufficient skills out there on our oceans, too often requiring rescue when they should be able to get home themselves. Read my opinion piece.

There is so much new gear on the market these days, so many advances in both technology and materials, that it's hard to keep up with the options. The DAME marine design awards were announced this week, and some really amazing innovations are among the award winners. At first I thought that giving the overall award to a port-hole window was a bit marginal and trite, but changed my mind when I saw just how it could potentially revolutionise portholes in new yacht designs.

Two rallies featured this week – the ARC Rally is just about to depart to cross the Atlantic and the Port2Port Rally is just finishing after a South Pacific crossing.

Finally, some rescues are recounted. We usually choose to include a rescue stories if there is a lesson to be learned, and one of the wonderful things about cruising is that you never, never stop learning.

These were just a few highlights – plenty more there, so browse the headlines.

Marine Industry companies, Clubs and Associations have asked can they received their own customised version of our Sail-World news feed. The answer is yes; customised in content, news category, for example or region of the world and appearance.

Change the frequency of newsletters, from once a week to a monthly newsletter. Change from html (graphics & pictures) newsletters to text only newsletter, (best for slow connections, mobile phones and PDA's etc. Change from Sail-World New Zealand Newsletters to Sail-World Cruising International Newsletters etc. Temporarily inactivate your subscription for a period, when you will be on holidays etc. or change to text for the same period. Or even (gasp) unsubscribe.Change your newsletter subscription profile here or take off list